Surge in demand for hotel rooms as staycation season looms

Hotels and B&Bs across Ireland have reported a sharp increase in reservations over the weekend following Friday's announcement that hotels, hostels and restaurants can reopen from June 29th.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said on Friday the re-opening of hotels, restaurants, hostels and museums would be brought forward to the end of June as part of phase two of the roadmap to reopening the country.

In the Parknasilla resort in Co Kerry, the phone started ringing shortly after midday on Friday as rumours began circulating that the reopening date for hotels would be brought forward. By Monday morning, nearly all the resort’s 65 self-catering houses had been booked out for July while reservations for the hotel continued to stream in, said Carmel Flynn, head of sales for Parknasilla.

“When the news hit on Friday it was like an avalanche of reservations. People know we’re located in a very open space, they’re comfortable about booking to stay in that environment.”

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Anxious wait

Parknasilla is set to lose €3 million this year but hopes to make some money back over the summer months, said Ms Flynn. Some 38 European staff members have remained on site during lockdown helping to “keep the hotel alive” but the resort hopes to be back employing 130 people by the end of July.

Hotel staff are now anxiously awaiting the Government’s re-opening guidelines, says Ms Flynn. “We’re happy to open slowly, set up our systems and test them at first. We’re hoping for a one-metre social distancing rule but we can see why it would be two metres for the initial period. We just have to go with the flow.”

Further south, the phone at Rolf's Country House outside Baltimore in West Cork also started ringing off the hook on Friday afternoon.

“Since last Thursday we’ve had 63 enquiries which translated into bookings, the week before there were only 11 enquiries,” said owner Johannes Haffner, adding that some people were booking for early July as soon as restrictions are lifted.

All reservations are from Irish visitors so far, said Mr Haffner. However, he’s hoping to see the usual German and French tourists return in September.

The rooms at Rolf’s were fully refurbished during the winter to mark the country houses’ 40th year in West Cork. “The place is looking gorgeous but no one has stayed in the new rooms yet. They were ready to go for Easter but then all the bookings were cancelled.”

“I’m feeling positive about the situation now. The doors are opening and because Irish people are weary about travelling abroad, I think we’ll benefit as an island with tourism.”

‘Everyone has been affected’

Back in Kerry, Gary Curran who runs Greenmount House in Dingle has also been fielding a wave of reservation requests since last Friday. He says most people are holding out visiting the town until pubs re-open on July 20th.

Dingle, a town which relies hugely on tourism, has suffered badly in the past three months, said Mr Curran. “We were just about to take back our staff for the summer and then lockdown happened. Everyone has been affected here, no one escaped it. We’re all in the same boat together.”

Greenmount is now preparing how to serve breakfast while maintaining social distancing between customers. “Usually we have a buffet and people graze but we’ll have to bring in booking times for breakfast and it will go on for longer. Theoretically we can seat 20 people but we’ll probably only be able to allow 8-10 people at a time now.”

Tim Fenn, chief executive of the Irish Hotel Federation agreed that there had been an increase in online traffic investigating Irish holiday locations and that it was "clear that people are confident that they can stay safely in Irish hotels this summer".

Mr Fenn said it was too early to calculate how many bookings were being made but “heartening” to see people making plans for holidays at home in Ireland.